


the past a foreign country

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Canon Backstory, Gen, Prompt Fill, They Talk In A Tavern It's My Favorite Genre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 03:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: In which Percival de Rolo visits foreign shores and sees a familiar face, eventually.





	the past a foreign country

**Author's Note:**

> For [@reblogs-and-radiation](http://reblogs-and-radiation.tumblr.com) who asked for Percy & Caleb meeting.

>   _The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there_. –– L. P. Hartley

He recognizes the look of them as soon as they enter the tavern, laughing and calling to each other as though they are each the center of the others’ world. He’s not the only one to take note of the new arrivals; the other patrons visibly sigh and duck lower over their drinks, bracing themselves for whatever this new group might throw at them––perhaps literally. 

Not Percy, though. He sits a little straighter and watches them crowd around a table that does not quite fit them all, nostalgia lapping at him as surely as the surf against the sand down at the end of the road. It seems no time since he himself was in their shoes, road-worn and thriving, tripping over his companions and happy for the hand up when he stumbled. **  
**

His lingering gaze does not go unnoticed. One of them––a woman in blue who has a look of the Cobalt order to her dress––catches his eye and frowns. Her brow furrows magnificently, all suspicion and doubt, and he smoothes away a curling smile.

She jerks her chin up at him. “You need something, old man?”

 _Old man_. He’s hard-pressed not to laugh.

“Not at all,” he returns.

“How bout you, y’know.” She shrugs a little, in the sort of way that reminds him of a fighter readying for a bout. “Mind your own business, then?”

“That’s not very nice, Beau,” the tiefling next to her says, reproachful almost, and the one in blue––Beau, it would seem––scowls and narrows her eyes in his direction, but lets her companion pull her back into their conversation. Percy shakes his head and returns to his drink and listens to the group with half an ear, and thinks over-fondly of many evenings spent just so, a self-made family crowded in, all elbows and knees and kinship.

It is while he is lost in his thoughts that a shadow falls over the table. He glances up.

One of the young adventurers stands over his table. One of his hands worries at the threadbare sleeve of his coat, picking at trailing threads. A tawny-banded cat curls around his neck like a scarf, blinking down at him with electric blue eyes that strike Percy as not entirely of this plane. Percy take it all in, the disheveled hair and the worn coat and the few days worth of stubble dusting his chin, and leans back in his chair a little.

“Can I help you?” he asks. The man frowns, just a little.

“I came to apologize for my... friend’s behavior.” He stumbles over the word a little, and Percy has a lightning-quick flash of memory: Keyleth at his side in a small crowded tavern just like this one mumbling,  _You’re my best friend you know that_ , and the way he had utterly frozen. Percy shakes his head.

“Not the social type I take it?”

“She is learning.” He sounds proud as he says it, just a little.

The man has a thick accent, and it niggles something at the back of his mind. He nods at the chair across from him.

“Care to sit?”

“I do not wish to interrupt your evening.”

“Quite the contrary. Indulge an old man.”

He frowns. “You do not look so old.”

“Grey before my time, I’m afraid. Truly, it’s no bother. Unless I’m keeping you, of course.”

The man glances over his shoulder to where the tiefling has perched on her chair, supported mostly by the woman––Beau––and started shouting happily about gemstones and oceans. He looks back at Percy.

He sits.

Percy laughs. “A little loud, I take it?”

“I like them,” the man assures him. “But... yes.”

“I was much the same,” he says, and holds out a hand. “But I forget my manners. Percival. Percy, to my friends.”

“I am Caleb Widogast.” The man takes his hand a little hesitantly. There are calluses across his palms, the part not covered in cloth wrappings. The cat blinks slowly at him. Yes, Percy decides, certainly a fey something.

“And your group?”

“We, ah, call ourselves the Mighty Nein.”

“The number, or the word?” Percy asks, and Widogast’s eyebrows climb.

“You know Zemnian?”

“Only a smattering,” he demurs. Widogast stares at him a moment as though working out the pieces to a particularly unexpected puzzle.

“The word,” he says slowly. “But, both.”

Percy does a quick headcount. “There aren’t nine of you.”

“No,” agrees Widogast. Percy’s lip quirks.

“I like it.”

“Ja.”

The conversation peters out. Percy takes a long, slow pull from his tankard, frowning at the man over the rim. Caleb Widogast frowns back, and his cat does too, if that is possible. He cannot shake the feeling that something about this is familiar.

“I’m terribly sorry if this is rude,” he says, setting his drink down. “But do I know you?”

“Nein,” Widogast says slightly too fast. “We have not met.” 

> _“And you have already Bren,” says Ikithon, settling one hand on the shoulder of a boy like a beanpole. He must be fifteen, sixteen, with close-cropped hair and sharp eyes, robes immaculate. He fits neatly between the other two; clearly they are a single unit. Percy inclines his head._
> 
> _“Ah, yes. The library. My apologies again for interrupting your studies.”  
>  _
> 
> _“It is fine, Lord de Rolo,” the boy replies in a thick accent. Ikithon smiles, sickle-sharp and unpleasant.  
>  _
> 
> _“Bren is the best of our students,” Ikithon continues. The boy stares up at Percy, unwavering in a way that sets his teeth on edge, just the tiniest bit. There is something hollow behind his eyes that reminds him of–– Well. He finds he must look away. “He does the Empire proud.”  
>  _
> 
> _“I’m certain.”  
>  _
> 
> _“If your Vox Machina only had someone of our caliber working with you––”  
>  _
> 
> _“Sir Darrington does your Empire credit.” And is not a child, even when he acts like it. Percy’s estimation of the man sinks with the second. “And I’m afraid I’m late for dinner with him. If you will excuse me, Master Ikithon.”  
>  _
> 
> _“Of course. Do visit again soon. It’s so rare we have foreigners to share their stories with us.”  
>  _
> 
> _“Then I look forward to sharing more when I return.”_

“Bren,” he says, and Widogast’s eyes go wide.

“What did you say?”

“You were there at the Academy.”

“Nein. No, that was not––”

“It’s alright.” Percy swallows back decades-old distaste. He had seen it then, and done nothing. Bloody politics. “I’m certainly not going to tell anyone about it.”

Widogast’s eyes are still saucer-wide, and the cat watches him with single-minded focus. “I don’t––That was eighteen years ago, how did you––”

“You reminded me a great deal of someone I knew,” he says with more of a wince than he means to. 

“Who?”

“Myself.” Then, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

He says nothing. Percy sighs.

“I suppose it’s none of my business, really. Whatever happened, whatever changed, I wish you the best. Truly.”

Widogast stares at him a long time. Then he nods once and stands, conversation clearly over. Percy stands with him.

“If you’ll permit an old man a word of advice?”

Widogast pauses and looks back at him. He still says nothing, but his expression shifts––an invitation, or something close enough.

“When they try to help––” He tilts his head towards the rowdy group. “Let them. It will make a great deal of awfulness far more bearable, no matter how undeserved it feels.”

His face shutters. The cat rubs its face against his jaw.

He says, “Have a good night, Percival.”

Percy inclines his head and watches him return to his friends. They reach out as he approaches, fold him into the mass of them, elbows and limbs and all. He stares at them a moment longer, and thinks of his own family with a fondness so deep it aches.

Then he turns and slips out of the tavern and into the Wildemount night.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [@teammompike](http://teammompike.tumblr.com)


End file.
